


Gnomecoming

by Neelh



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Attempted Forced Marriage, Family Bonding, Gen, Kidnapping, Necromancy, The Power Of Mabel, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 09:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21491878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neelh/pseuds/Neelh
Summary: “Just marry us all and be our queen, Mabel!”“Well, last time I tried to avoid summer ending, I might have kickstarted the apocalypse accidentally. My memories of that are still kind of fuzzy. So, thanks, but no thanks?”Jeff sighed. “Okay, I see that we’re getting nowhere. So how about we sort this out like adults? I’ll give you until sunset to decide on whether or not you’re going to marry us, and if you decide not to, then we’ll kidnap you and force you to be our queen anyway. Does that sound good to you?”(or: mabel goes on an adventure. ford is also there, because he has longer legs and science)
Relationships: Ford Pines & Mabel Pines
Comments: 19
Kudos: 91





	Gnomecoming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eregyrn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eregyrn/gifts).

> sup! this was supposed to be 4k, but it was also supposed to be out like. three years ago. thankfully, a very loved friend's birthday encouraged me to Get This Done
> 
> anyway eregyrn donated to the aclu and also asked me to write something like "something about mabel and ford having fun adventures together" which was. vague. but it is done!!! >:>
> 
> this is gonna be so awkward if they weren't the one who asked for it

This was long overdue.

Dipper had been writing in his and Grunkle Ford’s journal ever since he found all three books completely restored after Weirdmageddon, and so he’d been kind of ignoring her. Mabel knew that it wasn’t on purpose, but she still wanted to spend time with her brobro! And Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were spending a lot more time together now that Grunkle Stan was recovering his memories and Ford was being all mopey about the past, so they were having some much-needed bonding time, sans Mabel.

But, well, now she had two days until she and Dipper go home, and she’d spent maybe five minutes getting to know her other grunkle personally? So that’s kind of awkward, because Ford’s related to her and Dipper and Grunkle Stan both love him and so does Mabel but she kind of wants to hang out with him? Like, one-on-one, quality niece-grunk bonding time, instead of almost ending the world, because, well, they’ve both done that. But the past is the past, right?

Anyway, Mabel _was_ considering tickling him into submission until Ford took her into the woods to investigate some cool anomalies and maybe punch some more unicorns, but her opportunity to bond with the Second Grunkle came a lot quicker than she was expecting, in the form of, well…

“Mabel!”

That voice was familiar. It wasn’t Bill’s, but it was kind of similar, and also completely different in a way that Mabel couldn’t really explain. Kind of like how sometimes Mister Old Man Fiddleford McGucket or whatever they were calling him now sometimes sounded like Grunkle Stan. Come to think of it, sometimes President Eight-Point-Five Quentin Trembley would sound like Old Man McGucket. That was kind of weird. Mabel made a mental note to never inform Dipper of those facts, because he would probably end up losing sleep and fighting a wyrm for answers. Not like that’s happened before. Nope! No way.

Nevertheless, when she opened her bedroom door, she found herself face-to-face with a shattered triangular window and at least fifteen gnomes. On a pile of Mabel’s stuffed animals stood Jeff, at an eye-to-eye level with her.

“Hi!” Jeff said, far too enthusiastically for someone who had just broken into a preteen’s and her brother’s bedroom.

“Hi?” replied Mabel. She couldn’t forget to be nice and polite, because in fairy tales the mean people always get turned into horrific beasts and, to be honest, Mabel was willing to let bygnomes be bygnomes. She’d dealt with demons this summer, and she just wanted to look at pretty flowers or something without being harassed by the nearest supernatural creatures.

“So, you’re, you’re leaving, right?” said Jeff, gesturing with his hands a little. “I mean, you’re going back home, the summer’s ending, and you’re not going to be in Gravity Falls anymore, right?”

“Ye-e-es?” Mabel drew out the word through closed teeth.

“Well, how would you like to stay?” he asked, flinging his arms out with weird little gnomey jazz hands. “Just marry us all and be our queen, Mabel!”

Mabel shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I’m kind of looking forward to going home, so that I can come back and have everything feel special and new again, and also Dipper and I need to go to high school and reconstruct the social hierarchy to be about musicals. Also, last time I tried to avoid summer ending, I might have kickstarted the apocalypse accidentally. My memories of that are still kind of fuzzy. So, thanks, but no thanks?”

Jeff sighed. “Okay, I see that we’re getting nowhere. So how about we sort this out like adults? I’ll give you until sunset to decide on whether or not you’re going to marry us, and if you decide not to, then we’ll kidnap you and force you to be our queen anyway. Does that sound good to you?”

“No, it doesn’t, really,” she replied, leaning backwards. “Can I, like, get a raincheck on that?”

The gnomes had already begun to clamber out of the window, though, leaving nothing but the distinct smell of marmalade and squirrel farts.

Mabel flopped onto her bed and groaned.

Seriously? She’d already rejected them once, how many more times did they need to be told _no_? She meant, they weren’t even like Gideon, where he could have misunderstood what she said. Okay, it was kind of a stretch, but at the start of the summer when Mabel wanted to be Gideon’s friend, she had done her best to rationalise his manipulation.

The gnomes weren’t even being manipulative. They were just being jerks.

Mean jerks. With pointy hats, and a track record in kidnapping people. And who have most likely kidnapped and married girls like her before. Was it because she was short, and they were too? Were the gnomes of indeterminate age at the same level of emotional maturity as a young girl?

She groaned again. Her life _sucked_.

* * *

Grunkle Ford coming into her room was weird, though. Like, one moment she was contemplating on how to clone herself so that she could leave the copy with the gnomes and escape to freedom, but then she got caught up in the ethics of it and whether her clone would be really sad at basically being created for the sole purpose of being used and left to die, and then Grunkle Ford was asking if she was alright.

“My clone is upset,” Mabel choked out through her tears.

There was a beat of silence, and Mabel could literally hear Grunkle Ford thinking. He was like some sort of smartypants robot! Huh. Maybe she could make a robot clone of herself instead? Robots didn’t have emotions and only existed to serve other people’s purposes. But this was Gravity Falls! What if her robot clone wanted to feel love and freedom? She couldn’t do that to her robot self.

“The gnomes want to kidnap me again,” she said, realising that Grunkle Ford was actually trying to understand what she meant by her clone being upset. “I don’t think that they got the picture with the leaf blower a few months ago.”

Grunkle Ford nodded sagely, understanding flooding his features. “Yes, they do get rather temperamental. What did you steal from them?”

Mabel shrugged and made a weird noise. “Their hearts, I guess? I dated five of them, you know, when they were disguised as a human. I just figured that Norman’s body was changing and he was still adjusting to it and that was why he was so klutzy. You can’t blame me for thinking that, right?”

Ford’s face dropped into a frown and his brows furrowed in confusion. He exclaimed, “But they only came after me when I kidnapped one of their own!”

She flopped back onto her bed, sighing. “Well, I guess I’m just far too irresistible for my own good. But seriously, how am I going to ethically get out of this situation?”

“I’m going to murder them all.”

Grunkle Ford’s tone was very matter-of-fact, and, from the sound of it, he was already readying his sci-fi laser blipper gun.

“No!” Mabel shrieked, sitting bolt upright in an instant. “That’s not ethical!”

Grunkle Ford smiled placatingly. “Morality is relative, dear.”

“Turning my own words against me.” She shook her head slowly. “For shame, Grunkle Ford, for shame.”

“It’s murder or let you be kidnapped,” he said, “and my murdering skills have improved since I was last in this dimension.”

His face fell, and he begun to get that faraway look in his eyes that he always got when he thought about his sad brain things for too long.

“We don’t need murder stuff,” Mabel replied, her expression shifting to match her Grunkle’s. “We just need to get them to stop going after me, and maybe we can teach them about consent or whatever.”

“A deterrent and some education,” said Grunkle Ford, before smirking. “That could have been useful for the kids at Glass Shard Beach, but I suppose it could also work for the gnomes. How should we put it together, though?”

Mabel eyed her glitter. “I have a pretty good idea.”

* * *

It would go without saying that transporting five large tubs of glitter through a laboratory would be precarious, but Mabel was as stubborn as a sleeping Grunkle and Grunkle Ford decided that a bicycle helmet would be enough precautions for taking his grandniece to do science. Of course, Mabel had never used helmets when riding bikes anywhere in Gravity Falls, because her parents weren’t there to tell her stories of people who died because they weren’t wearing bike helmets. But science was serious. Science needed helmets.

“Right, Mabel, we should probably clear a space for the glitter and ammonium dichromate,” said Grunkle Ford, as gleeful as a Gideon who wasn’t a jerk and terrible at everything. Just the adjective. He was holding a grand total of zero glitter tubs. Mabel was carrying five. She couldn’t see her feet.

It took a while for Grunkle Ford to realise that she was glaring at him.

“Ah, yes, well, I suppose that I should probably, um. Help you out.”

Then, continuing the bashing theme, he knocked several empty glass containers off of his desk. Most of them shattered on the floor, but three of them bounced as if the ground was their own personal trampoline.

Mabel decided that, at some point, she would totally do that as well. Use the floor as her own personal trampoline, she meant, not fall off a table and die. Unless the gnomes got her. But that wasn’t likely! She had Grunkle Ford on her side, and he’s done like five science things to stop bad supernatural stuff, like with Bill!

“The thing with this experiment is how simple it is,” Grunkle Ford said, laying out all of the ingredients on the table. “You see, ammonium nitrate only needs lighter fluid and a spark to begin the chemical reaction. This makes the ammonium nitrate break down, and thus creates a sudden influx of oxygen gas as the molecules reassemble. You also have to be very cautious about how much lighter fluid you combine with it, as just the slightest imbalance could completely ruin the chemical reaction, and instead of exploding it could just burn.”

Mabel blinked.

“Well, yes, we’re going to completely ignore all of that and just mix it all up in a box with some glitter, and then we’ll just hope for the best,” Grunkle Ford smiled. He seemed rather cheerful for someone whose favourite grandniece was under threat of being kidnapped by gnomes.

“And this will get the gnomes to leave me alone?” asked Mabel, after evaluating each of these steps in the plan for a moment. By _evaluating_, Mabel of course meant that she considered the various steps and, well, how freaking cool it would be!

“Yes!” he grinned in response. “Or no! It’ll be hard to know for certain until it actually happens, but I except that this plan will have a seventy percent chance of working! Possibly. It… It might be a bit lower than that.”

Mabel blinked.

Then her face broke out into a huge smile to match the sunbeam-rainbows that her heart could possibly biologically recreate in order to pump around her body like blood.

“Well, I’m sold!” she said.

* * *

“I don’t know what you did, Grunkle Ford, but I don’t think we’re in Gravity Falls anymore.”

“Whatever gave you that idea, Mabel?” Grunkle Ford responded, snow crunching under his feet.

Mabel looked around at the thick clouds beneath them both, and the snowy mountain’s peak above them. Then she looked at Grunkle Ford.

That was apparently enough explanation for Grunkle Ford, because he ran a hand through his hair and said. “Well, Mabel, I have no idea where we are. For all I know, we’re in another dimension with no hope of returning home.”

Mabel’s bottom lip began to wobble and tremble, and her nose was already growing rosy from the chill.

“But I’m sure that we’re in the right place! And we’ll definitely get home in time for tea, and also for you to not get kidnapped by gnomes, who will then marry you. I don’t know what they’ll do afterwards, to be honest. The Queen of the Gnomes was never all that interested in talking to me whenever I came across her in the forest. I’d love to find out what their society is like! Unfortunately, I was… I was not on particularly good terms with the gnome colony, which might be why their Queen didn’t appear to like me very much. Of course, she was much nicer than the unicorns, but at that point I thought that unicorns were good, and-“

Mabel groaned in boredom, cutting Grunkle Ford’s rambles off. “But where are we going? Are we just gonna freeze on this weird mountain pass thing? I’ve played Wagon Age before! Well, Dipper did, and I watched, but I saw a lot of it and I know how it goes! They die in the snow! And of dysentery!”

“Well, I don’t believe that we will develop dysentery, but frostbite or hypothermia are possibilities, I suppose,” mused Grunkle Ford. “We should probably get moving if we don’t want to become Pines popsicles.”

Her eyes narrowed in determination, and Mabel began to march onwards. “_This_ is why I wear sweaters.”

Her arms retracted into the main body of her sweater, leaving her hands poking out like little dinosaur arms and flapping the sleeves like fluffy whips.

Ford, watching her, nodded. “We shouldn’t go uphill, though. The atmosphere will thin, and you could get lightheaded at best.”

“Don’t tell me the worst,” Mabel responded, still marching up the snowy path’s steep incline.

“The worst is that we could both die,” Ford said.

Mabel turned to look at her Grunkle with a similar expression to what someone might achieve if they were eating a chocolate bar that turned out to be a lemon in a cunning disguise.

“That was the opposite of what I asked you to do, and it’s dumb, anyway. We’re going up.”

“Mabel, that’s a terrible idea!” exclaimed Grunkle Ford. “I’ve explained why it’s a terrible idea! There are absolutely no benefits to climbing up further, so why are you demanding that we do that?”

“Clouds are water,” Mabel said, pointing at the clouds below them. “And one time, I had a water fight with Dipper when it was cold, and we both almost died, and this is snow and that means it’s even colder. Going through the clouds will just get us all soggy, and that’ll make us into perfect popsicles for the freezing!”

Grunkle Ford’s eyebrows pulled together in thought, making his forehead even wrinklier than it already was.

“Meanwhile, the sun is up there,” Mabel continued, pointing at the sky. “Also, I kind of want to climb a mountain. I even have my grappling hook, see!”

She pulled said grappling hook out from inside her sweater for a second, before putting it back. That was probably some kind of health and safety violation. The spiky bits could stab her, or something, but frankly, nobody in the Pines family had much regard for their own safety.

So Mabel continued her trek up the mountain, flapping her sleeves as though she was the world’s most wibbly bird, and Grunkle Ford trailing behind her with a slightly dumbfounded expression.

Her arguments made sense, but only if you could leap between thoughts and skip out on vital data. But then again, Ford wasn’t going to let his niece die! Well, alone, at least. Hopefully. Hopefully neither of them would die.

Positive outlooks could probably work, for once. Neither of them would die. In fact, climbing this mountain was far easier than Ford had expected, with all of the snow and ice making the ascent slippery. He could barely feel his energy sapping, even as he began to give Mabel a piggyback to make her smile.

That was until they reached the top, at least, and Ford saw the giant phoenix.

* * *

WHO ARE YOU, STRANGERS?

“I’m Mabel, Mabel Pines, and this is my Grunkle Ford!” grinned Mabel. This bird was really pretty, and its voice sounded really nice!

“No!” shouted Grunkle Ford, before blushing and leaning in to speak to Mabel in a hushed tone. “You must never give your true name to a stranger, especially one of supernatural origin!”

AM I SUPERNATURAL? I SEEM QUITE NATURAL TO MYSELF.

Mabel shrugged, still grinning. “I don’t know! I mean, my brother would probably freak out on meeting you, but he also freaks out around our friend Wendy, and she says that the only supernatural thing about her is how boys won’t stop trying to get into her pants even when she tells them to go away, and then she said that she might be descended from a succubus that got lost on her way home and thought that Gravity Falls High School was actually hell, which it is.”

INTERESTING…

“Mabel, you just told him where we live!” Ford screeched, very quietly so as not to disturb the phoenix.

NO, SHE DID NOT. SHE TOLD ME WHERE HER FRIEND WENDY LIVES. YOU TOLD ME WHERE YOU TWO LIVE.

Ford gritted his teeth and hissed, “_Drat_.”

STRANGE.

The phoenix blinked. It was quite difficult to see its owlish eyes, as it was sitting upright, and was also roughly the height of two average-sized doors stacked on top of each other.

I CANNOT SENSE A WENDY IN GRAVITY FALLS. HOWEVER, I CAN SENSE YOU.

The phoenix nodded towards Ford.

“Me?” he asked, gesturing at his chest.

YOU.

Mabel’s eyes widened. “Wait, what year is it?” she asked.

IT IS THE YEAR OF SEVEN THOUSAND SEEDS BURSTING THROUGH THE SOIL. IT IS THE YEAR OF DIAMOND DUST SPRINKLED TO CREATE PROTECTIVE RUNES. IT IS THE YEAR OF THE SONG _MIND THE GAP, NAPOLEON_, BY ICELANDIC POP SENSATION BABBA.

With a gasp, Mabel exclaimed, “Grunkle Ford, we’ve travelled back in time! It’s the late seventies!”

Grunkle Ford blinked rapidly, and he also looked kind of like someone had just torn his heart out of his chest and he was now having trouble with staying alive. Either he was really emotional, or he was dying, and Mabel hoped that it wasn’t dying. Seriously, there were only a few days of summer left! How could you survive the literal apocalypse and then die a few days later because of a mountain?

Wait, no, Mabel knows what that hand gesture means. It’s the _I’m pretending to be too cool to cry_ hand-face covering. Grunkle Ford can pull it off better than Grunkle Stan and Dipper, which isn’t saying much because those two wouldn’t be able to hide their emotions if she knitted them both some little metaphysical emotion ninja outfits.

“My research…” Grunkle Ford murmured, sounding like he was crying. Which he was, definitely. “How I forgot my family… Those damn bell bottoms…”

If an exclamation point had a sound, Mabel would have made that sound at that moment. “You have bell bottoms?”

“No,” Grunkle Ford said, frowning angrily. “I destroyed them, along with my plaid polka dot shirts. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Neither do I!” Mabel replied, feeling as if someone had eaten all of the chocolate without even telling her that there was chocolate until it was too late and all that was left was a wrapper for a chocolate bar that wasn’t even that good, but when she put it in the trash can, she saw her favourite chocolate bar wrapper, and then she realised that Dipper had gone and got it just for her but then Soos had eaten it, and Soos hadn’t realised that it was Mabel’s favourite chocolate until it was too late and he’d eaten it all, and Grunkle Stan couldn’t be bothered to drive them all out to the shops again for just one chocolate bar, so they tried to hide the wrappers in the trash before Mabel found out, but they had all unknowingly left one tiny piece of rubbish out, so when Mabel came downstairs for a midnight glass of milk and decided to be a good sparkle by cleaning up, she would see the trash that was due to be taken out the following morning, and she would see the wrapper for her favourite chocolate bar, and she would feel the crushing horror as she realised that everyone else had had chocolate except for her, and then she’d be too upset to talk to everyone for an entire day.

Okay, so maybe she still needed to get over that. But still, there was a definite feeling of betrayal in Mabel’s heart as she continued, “Do you know what you just cost the world of fashion?”

“Fifty dollars,” said Grunkle Ford, scratching his nose. “Those clothes were expensive, Mabel, and not only that, they were unduly horrific.”

SILENCE!

Grunkle Ford and Mabel obediently went silent.

I WILL NOT HAVE YOU BELITTLING THE FASHIONS OF MY TIME WITHIN MY PRESENCE.

“Sorry, phoenix person-bird,” Mabel said, hanging her head contritely. “I’m not sure if you’re a mister or ma’am or something else, so I’m going to stick with phoenix person-bird, if that’s okay.”

Grunkle Ford’s apology was a little less sincere and contrite, but it happened. Eventually. With a bit of metaphorical arm-twisting. And literal, but Mabel didn’t let the phoenix see that bit.

YOUR APOLOGIES ARE ACCEPTED. YOU ARE BOTH FORGIVEN. NOW, WHAT BRINGS YOU TO MY DOMAIN?

“A glittery explosion,” answered Mabel, as if it was a perfectly logical answer, which, surprisingly, the phoenix appeared to agree with.

THAT MAKES SENSE. SO, YOU MENTIONED THAT THE DECADE OF NINETEEN-EIGHTY HAS LONG SINCE PASSED?

“Yeah, it’s been thirty years?” Mabel did not ask. However, her voice did take a lilting tone upwards as though she _was_, in fact, asking a question. “Grunkle Ford probably still thinks it’s the eighties though, at least on some level, because he’s been in portals and stuff and basically he’s like some kind of interdimensional tourist.”

Grunkle Ford gave Mabel a look that clearly stated that she should avoid that subject and maybe any subject whatsoever, and that she should just let him do the talking. That, or it said that he knew that she ate the last flapjack.

“What my niece is meaning to say,” Ford interrupted, “is that there have been some unfortunate circumstances that occurred during my scientific research that resulted in my extended departure from this dimension that I spent exploring various different dimensions in order to discover a method which could be utilised to help destroy my nemesis.”

“And it was basically useless because all we needed to beat him was love and friendship and amnesia!” exclaimed Mabel.

THAT IS STRANGE.

The phoenix’s voice sounded rather confused.

IT IS KNOWN BY THE HUMANS HERE TO BE NINETEEN-SEVENTY-EIGHT.

Mabel and Ford looked at each other, and then back up to the phoenix. The phoenix looks just as bewildered as Grunkle Ford.

Mabel looks back to her Grunkle and says, “Did your explosion teleport us _and_ send us back in time?”

Grunkle Ford didn’t seem to be listening, though. Instead, he was clawing at his face with his stubby, flat fingernails, and looking around with an entirely unreadable expression. If Mabel, at that precise moment, had developed telepathic mind-reading powers, she might have been struck by the flood of wonder, anxiety, and hopefulness from Ford at the thought that he could fix all of his mistakes before he ruined his and his brother’s lives even more than he already had by this point. Thankfully, she didn’t, so this burst of thought was quickly dismissed as wishful thinking.

“I… I suppose so,” murmured Ford, his eyes still wide.

YOU MUST RETURN TO YOUR HOME.

“Yeah, that’s kind of a big deal,” Mabel grins awkwardly. “I’m supposed to catch the bus back to California in three days, and I want to spend the last few days of summer with my entire Gravity Falls family.”

THAT IS UNDERSTANDABLE. CLIMB UPON MY BACK. I CAN TAKE YOU TO THE FLOATING CLIFFS OF GRAVITY FALLS, BUT NO FURTHER. I HAVE NO POWERS OVER DISRUPTING TIME’S NATURAL FLOW PAST MY OWN REGENERATIVE ABILITIES, SO YOU MUST FIND YOUR OWN WAY TO YOUR OWN TIME.

“Regenerative abilities?” grinned Ford. “This is amazing!”

IT IS NOT AS AMAZING AS YOU MAY THINK, GRUNKLE FORD. I’M A PHOENIX. IT’S WHAT I DO.

* * *

The less said about the ride, the better.

* * *

It was surprisingly easy to hike back down the cliffs and to the forest. And by _surprisingly easy_, Mabel meant that she used her irresistible cuteness to get herself a piggyback from Grunkle Ford and took a nap while he did the legwork. It wasn’t like he didn’t do a load of walking in between all of those dimensions or something, and Mabel was pretty sure that he weighed less than the giant gun he’d been lugging around when he first came back!

Gravity Falls, for being thirty years or whatever in the past, smelt pretty much exactly the same. Sure, there were the weird car smells and a weird feeling that Doof and Marteigh from _Return Backwards To The Past Again_ were watching from somewhere, but it still smelt of pine trees and mud. Mabel flared her nostrils a few times in order to maximise the happiness effect from smelling the air.

“_Hello, Gravity Falls_!” she yelled to the trees, before giggling. “I always wanted to shout that.”

Grunkle Ford stared at her. “Mabel, do you realise what you have done?”

“I fulfilled a dream.”

“That might be so, but you also alerted anyone who could be in the forest to the fact that we’re here!” exclaimed Grunkle Ford at a volume that was really quite hypocritical.

There was a noise like someone jumping from a tree and landing on a branch to make it loudly snap, before an unfamiliar voice spoke up. “Yeah, you kind of would have done that yourself, just now, Stanford Pines.”

Mabel looked at Grunkle Ford, her hands retreating into the sleeves of her sweater.

Grunkle Ford looked at Mabel, his hand going to the gun on his waist.

They both gulped and carefully turned to see the person that had addressed them.

She had hair as wild as the fur of a Pomeranian that had taken a nap in a bush during a hurricane, and her bell bottoms were ragged and muddy at the heels. Her brown, bare feet were discoloured with dirt, cold, and dried skin, making Mabel think of paint that had gotten mixed up and dry before she could use it. The person wore a long, smock-like blouse, and upon her head was a tacky plastic crown, with a red pointed hat sticking up from the centre.

“Oh my gosh, you are so pretty!” Mabel could genuinely feel her heart grow from the pure, glorious revelry in craftspersonship. “Did you do that embroidery yourself?”

The person grinned and did a little swirl, exclaiming, “Yeah, I did! Thank you! My husbands have never noticed it, so it’s nice to know that someone cares!”

Grunkle Ford squinted. “Husbands?”

“Well, yes,” she said, gesturing to her crown. “It’s kind of obvious. You kidnapped a few of them, sometimes.”

Mabel began to bounce on her toes and pointed at the person. “You! You’re the Gnome Queen!”

The Gnome Queen smiled with playfully feigned demurity. “Well, I do prefer to be called Gwen. There’s only so much of being called by your title that you can take, you know?”

“I preferred being called Doctor Pines to Stanford at this point,” Grunkle Ford mumbled.

“That may be so, but you’re a time traveller with serious emotional issues,” said Gwen, “and I really don’t think that you’re an authority on being the Gnome Queen. Come on; let’s get you into the warm.”

And so, the two time-travelling Pines began to walk with the tackily-clothed bohemian chic Gnome Queen through the snowy forest. While Ford remained quiet, his gaze shifting restlessly between the trees, Mabel was talking so quickly that Ford was convinced that she could successfully enter a tongue twisting contest and walk away with the top prize.

“So, what year is it? Do you live in the enchanted part of the forest? I punched a unicorn there once, because she was being a giant jerk!”

To her credit, Queen Gwen was answering at a rate of knots. “It’s nineteen-seventy-nine. And, well, of course I live there, where else? None of the other parts of the forest have sophisticated underground apartments. Oh, was that Celestibella? She’s recently had a foal, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the kid grew up to be just like her. Like mother, like daughter, you know?”

“Well, people always said I got my outstanding charm from my mom!” Mabel grinned, winking and sticking out her tongue.

Gwen nodded approvingly. “I don’t know your mom, but I can see that hereditary charm, love.”

When they reached a particularly large tree, Gwen opened the red door painted in red onto one side and ushered Mabel and Ford inside.

Mabel beamed as the smell of oil paints and freshly baked bread overwhelmed her nose. Every inch of the walls was covered in tapestries, embroidery, or intricately painted murals, which all must make going up the spiral staircase on the walls a load more interesting. Underneath the stairs, though, were a bunch of cupboards that were all painted with flowers, and a teal vintage oven.

“Well, home sweet home, right?” Gwen grinned. Then, watching as Mabel and Ford settled down, she raised her voice and called upstairs. “Hey, guys, come on out!”

Fifteen gnomes popped out of the oven that Grunkle Ford had begun to inspect, like giant stinky confetti. More tumbled down the staircase, amongst slinkies and plushies and a very large acorn.

“So, welcome to our humble gnomestead,” said Gwen. “These are my five-hundred husbands. Would you like a cup of tea while you exposit on your situation?”

* * *

The less said about the exposition, the better. The tea was good, though.

* * *

“And, well, that’s how we ended up in this strangely unreasonable situation.”

Gwen nodded at Ford’s statement, but with a kind of demeaning smile. “Well, I don’t think it’s that unreasonable.”

Ford spluttered. “But how?”

“You live in Gravity Falls, don’t you? And there were temporal anomalies happening for a while,” said Gwen, throwing her empty teacup in the air. A gnome caught it, to the cheers of his peers and his Queen. Gwen leaned forwards, with her elbows on her knees. “And, from the sounds of things, it’s a temporal anomaly centred on Mabel, here.”

While Grunkle Ford was probably going to come out with some kind of bluster of disbelief, Mabel bounced up, feeling the muscles in her face clench up with the power of smiles. “I’m a temporal anomaly? Oh my _gosh_, gimme _all_ the deets!”

In roughly the same tone of voice, Gwen replied, “I have no idea what a ‘deet’ is, but it’s something like, depending on your level of whimsy and fear, you can travel in time! Probably.”

“Is it permanent?” asked Ford.

Gwen shrugged and made a sound that sounded a bit like, “Myergh.”

“When did you experience the feeling of fear, Mabel?” Grunkle Ford asked his favourite grandniece.

Mabel, in response, shrugged and made a different noise than Gwen’s, before she said, “I don’t know. I’m kind of always subconsciously scared, maybe? I’m twelve, and I haven’t even been born yet.”

When Ford swore, the gnomes crawling everywhere collectively gasped.

Gwen blinked. “I mean, I’m not going to lecture you for swearing in front of a kid, but, say what?”

“Mental health issues run in the family, Mabel,” said Grunkle Ford, patting her head. “Sorry about that.”

“Then that’s one more thing that makes us all a family!” Mabel grinned, before looking back to Gwen. “So, when I’m scared, I time-travel?”

With a wavey hand, Gwen replied, “Kind of? It’s just a flight of fancy combined with the fear that sends you back. It doesn’t even need to be that strong. I guess the lack of fear might send you back to your time. Probably.”

“So we need to fix what’s scared Mabel,” said Ford.

“Exactly,” said Gwen, before turning back to Mabel and asking, “So, what’s got your turtleneck in a tangle? You kind of skipped that in your exposition dump.”

Mabel could feel her mouth stretch into the most awkward baring of teeth that could pass for a smile. “Um, well… It’s kind of gnomes.”

At that, the gnomes teeming around the room like ants in their little ant house looked up at their queen and her guests, before shrugging and getting back to work.

Through gritted teeth, Gwen let out a sigh. “What did they do?”

“_Well_.”

Mabel cleared her throat.

“First, when I first arrived in Gravity Falls, I really wanted a boyfriend, and there was this boy, called Norman, and he was all cool and dark and mysterious, but also kind of clumsy, and it was endearing! And then he took me out to the woods, and I was excited, because I thought he was gonna be a vampire, but he was-“

“Gnomes. Yeah. They did the same thing with me, but then I asked them to court me as a load of gnomes instead of a poorly-dressed human, and it worked out great,” nodded Gwen.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t really up for that, because I’m twelve, and they all had beards, and I’m just not that into it? Like, that look’s okay for, like, grandpas, and Old Man McGucket, but I prefer my men clean-shaven and able to meet my eye without stacking up together. So they proposed to me, I rejected it, and they kidnapped me. Then my brother, Dipper, helped save me, and then I fought them away with the leaf blower, and that was that, until this morning, when they broke my window, violated my plushies, and threatened me with kidnapping again, but I’m just a kid! I’m not ready for marriage!”

“Matrignomey,” Gwen corrected absently. “It’s a good pun.”

Grunkle Ford pushed his glasses up and groaned. “I appreciate it, but puns won’t stop Mabel from getting kidnapped and forced into a position she isn’t ready for and doesn’t want.”

“Yeah, I want to go to high school and see if Dipper gets an entire star map on his face!”

“That makes a lot of sense,” mused Gwen. “I became Queen when I was nineteen, and I volunteered. My auntie was their queen before me, but I think it’s because she had the hots for the Empress of Dryads. And, honestly, I’m only really interested in forest politics. They should have asked, and been upfront, if they respected my lessons to them.”

“Then why didn’t they?” Mabel asked.

“Okay, kid, don’t look them in the eyes and say this,” Gwen said, leaning in and softening her voice, “but gnomes are really darn stupid.”

Ford squinted at her, adjusting his glasses. “Are you certain? Because these specimens are far more intellectually advanced than the single one I have studied so far.”

A smirk began to play across Gwen’s lips. “Let me guess. He only said Shmebulock.”

“Well,” Ford blinked. “_Yes_.”

“Wait, how long do gnomes live for?” Mabel blurted out the question in much the same way that one would puke; suddenly and without warning. “Because, like, Shmebulock was the leg of the gnome-man, and it’s even weirder being courted by elderly-looking tiny men if they actually _are_ elderly.”

Gwen hummed. She stood up, climbed a few stairs with soft, thudding footsteps, and grabbed a few random gnomes. She shook them by their ankles, one by one, to various reactions.

“What in the name of Twizzeltort’s hairy kneecap?” snapped the first.

“Hurgle gurgle,” gurgled the second.

The third just sort of flopped like a ragdoll, his face holding the expression of one who has finally meditated their way to nirvana.

The fourth one dealt with it for a while before wriggling out of his shoe. A smell of mouldy leaves and dead animals slowly started to dissipate through the room. Mabel covered her nose with her entire fist, just in case the smell got any worse, as she watched Gwen peer inside the shoe.

The Queen emerged with a grin, not showing any sign of being bothered about the smell, and chucked the tiny shoe in the vague direction of a gnome.

“Jason, get your bootie back on!” she called, teeth still bared.

She hopped down from the stairs and shoved her fingers along Mabel’s scalp, ruffling the hair there.

“Was that necessary?” asked Grunkle Ford, with his mouth pulled asymmetrically, crinkling up his left eye, in the same way that Dipper does when Mabel adds birdseed to her sandwiches.

Gwen nodded. “That gnome was born in forty-one, I think, but he’s genuinely convinced that he’s twenty. Also, the boot says it belongs to Harold, which…” She turned her head up and a little to the side, so that she was looking right up at a little gnome shelf. “Harold, did you and Jason swap boots?”

“Nah,” Harold called back down. “I won his name in sixty-eight though!”

Gwen turned to the two humans and shrugged. “Normal. They live normal-length lives, so it’s very likely that the gnomes who courted you were the same age as Stanford, here. Which, you know, I expected better from Steve. Not Carson, though. Carson’s a jerk. Anyway, about your fears. I think it’s time for you to be less afraid of… Being kidnapped… By my numerous husbands.”

For a moment, the only sound is of gnomes existing.

“I am so sorry about what happened to you, Mabel. But this is going to work.”

* * *

After an uncomfortable minute of being stuffed inside a tree, the bark fell away and left Stanford standing stiffly, with Mabel perched on his shoulders with her arms stretched out. A piece of paper was folded in her fist, and she put it in her turtleneck while she rolled her shoulder. Said shoulder was kind of hurting more than the time that she’d been playing freeze-tag, but nobody freed her at the end of break, so she’d just stayed outside for the next few periods.

Never let it be said that Mabel is not an excellent player of games.

But yeah, _ouch_. Being a tree is a lot less fun when you’re an actual tree, and not just pretending to be one in the school play. Actually, being the tree in the school play kind of sucks. Being a tree sucks. You just get cute forest animals living in your hair and arms, and then they poop on you, so they’re less cute.

“Apparently, we should be back in our own time period,” Grunkle Ford said, adjusting his watch, which hadn’t been very helpful in discovering that they were in nineteen-seventy-eight, so it wasn’t going to help if they were back in twenty-twelve.

“I know how to figure out if we’re back!”

Mabel climbed down from Grunkle Ford and led him to where she was pretty sure the Mystery Shack was. And, yep, there was the whole building, still being reconstructed. The sun was beginning to descend, bathing the broken letters of the sign in an even deeper scarlet.

“Mabel, when were the gnomes planning on kidnapping you?” asked Ford.

She looked up at the sky. she looked at her Grunkle Ford. She repeated these steps a few times.

“Sunset,” she finally said.

“_Mabel_!”

Jeff’s unmistakably annoying voice rose out from behind the two of them. Both Mabel and Ford turned to face him, slowly, as if he could just disappear, and they wouldn’t have to deal with this whole mess.

Unfortunately, this just gave the gnomes more time to arrive. They were all wearing their normal gnomey clothes, except that their hats had old cans of Pitt Soda stapled on. This made a little clatter as they all rushed to greet her. She clutched Grunkle Ford’s trouser leg like it would actually protect her.

“You brought a witness to give you away!” Jeff beamed. “Mabel, I’m so happy! You’ll be an excellent Queen!”

That was not why Ford was there. Mabel knew that. Ford knew that. But Ford was kind of looking like a very bewildered owl, so it was up to Mabel to come up with an awesome plan. She was Mabel Freaking Pines, creative genius! She’d made rigged questionnaires (that had failed!) for the sake of obtaining a boyfriend! She’d created an entire puppet show (which had failed!) for the sake of obtaining a boyfriend! She had stabbed her way out of a dream-turned-nightmare dimension while riding her pet pig, because she could, and because she was Mabel Freaking Pines! If she could burst her own literal dream bubble at the right moment, she could do the same to Jeff’s metaphorical one!

“Sure,” she said, noncommittally. “The thing is, I’d like to pay respects to the previous Gnome Queen before I marry you.”

The gnome horde whispered amongst each other in weird hissing noises, then began to cheer.

Jeff was wiping his eyes and his nose with the uncanned tip of his hat. “That’s… So noble! So grand! We were right, Mabel! You’ll make an excellent Queen!”

* * *

Being transported via gnome crowdsurfing was far more pleasant the second time. Maybe it was because she wasn’t tied up, or maybe it’s because she was seated in Grunkle Ford’s lap so their tiny gnome hands were poking into his body instead of hers. Mabel thought, though, that it might be because she was a genius, and therefore qualified to be calm in these stressful situations.

However, Grunkle Ford, fellow genius, was not calm. His arms were wrapped tightly around Mabel, like rollercoaster bars that were either going to be too tight or too loose, so they had to be too tight or else you might fall out of the cart during a loop-the-loop. Dipper always held onto the bars until his knuckles went white, no matter how tightly he was fastened in.

“What were you thinking?” Grunkle Ford whispered. His weird char-grilled stubble brushed against Mabel’s ear. “We could have taken them, together!”

“I’m doing the best thing that I can do,” she whispered back. Well, it was more like a whistle, because of how the air that she breathed out sounded as it went through her braces.

His grip tightened even further. “Self-sacrifice isn’t the answer, Mabel.”

Oh.

Mabel patted his big hands, then leaned into the hug as best she could.

Before she could have the chance to explain her excellent plan, which, if spoken, could stop the whole thing from working out, their gnome-mobile stopped in front of a little gated field. Over the wooden gate was an equally wooden sign, which read _Gnaveyard_. It had probably initially said _graveyard_, but there was a little plank of wood nailed to what would have been the letter ‘r’.

“This is where all of our dead are buried!” Jeff grinned.

Several gnomes pried Grunkle Ford’s arms open so that Jeff could take Mabel’s hand and lead her through the gate.

“_Mab_-!”

Another gnome dove into Ford’s mouth before he could finish yelling her name.

“On the other side of this gnaveyard is the gnurch,” said Jeff, pleasantly, as if there weren’t gnome skulls on spikes protruding from most of the graves. “The Gnome Gnapel, where we we will get married, is there.”

He leapt with joy, high enough that Mabel didn’t have to stoop over to keep holding his hand for a second.

“Oh, this is so wonderful!” he beamed. “I always knew you’d come around, Mabel!”

She knew when they’d arrived at the old Queen’s grave, not because of the overly elaborate headstone, or because Jeff told her, but because the name etched into the stone was _Queen Gwen Corduroy_.

“Corduroy?” Mabel read. “You mean, like Wendy Corduroy’s family?”

“Oh yeah, the Wendy girl’s her niece, or something. No offense, but we went for her before you arrived, but she was… Very unwilling.”

Mabel thought, privately, that she herself was also very unwilling.

“Craig hasn’t been alright since. She chopped off that half of him with her axe,” finished Jeff. “Very nasty. Very bloody.”

When he let go of her hand so that he could gesture further at the loss of Craig’s limbs, Mabel took her chance. She jumped onto the grave and pulled the paper from her turtleneck, before beginning to dance a valiant jig and chanting the words that Gwen herself wrote, either a few decades or thirty minutes ago, depending on who you asked.

_“Corpsy corpus levitas_

_Queen Gwen of the Gnomes Gnorthwest_

_Rise up from the grassy grass_

_And end this gnomey harassment!”_

“What the _heck_?” said Jeff and Ford, simultaneously. Their looks of offence might have been similar, if they looked anything like each other.

The earth had begun to shake as soon as Mabel’s feet landed as she spoke the last syllables, stomping right where Gwen’s chest would be if she was not six feet under the ground. The sky seemed to gleam in glistening red and green, as if Christmas had come about four months and a few days early. A gnome was flung through the air by a tree that was being particularly violent with its trembling, and he looked just like a budget Santa decoration.

Overhead, a vaguely familiar phoenix roughly the size of a plane beat its shimmering scarlet wings, and cried with a voice that was kind of like a mix between a raven and a seagull. Fire followed its plumed tail like a comet trailing through the sky.

THE QUEEN RISES AGAIN. YOU OWE ME, LIKE, TWENTY BUCKS.

Mabel looked back to the gravestone, only to see it cracked, jagged, all the way to the ground.

Atop the broken pieces, Gwen stood, not looking a day over sixty. The tears in the fabric and suspicious stains on her clothes were covered with a rainbow poncho.

“I missed you, Mabel,” she grinned, waving.

“Gwen!” Mabel exclaimed back. “Hi again! I didn’t miss you because it’s been, like, an hour, tops.”

“Are my husbands giving you trouble?” asked Gwen, smiling a catlike smirk.

“My Queen?” Jeff stuttered out.

Gwen looked down at him, still smiling, with an eyebrow raised. “My Jeff?”

The gnomes tore towards her, like an ocean of jangling pointy hats, all chanting _“Queen! Queen! Queen!”_

Gwen was swept up by them, like Mabel was every time that she was being kidnapped, but Gwen didn’t seem upset. She was laughing gleefully, knocking hats over and conversing with each gnome like all of them were something between old friends and particularly stupid dogs.

When they finally set her down, she leant against her gravestone and addressed the large, tiny crowd.

“Okay, gnomes,” she said. “This is my friend, Mabel.”

At that, she pointed at Mabel. Mabel looked around at all of the gnomes staring at her, and wiggled her fingers in a kind of wave. They kind of already knew that. They’d kidnapped her twice.

“That’s Mabel’s Grunkle Ford.” This time, Gwen pointed at Grunkle Ford. “He’s pretty cool, too. Not as cool as his gniece, but still.”

When the gnomes had all turned to look at Gwen again, she fixed them with an almighty stare.

“What did I teach you all about consent before that badger mauled me?”

The gnomes shifted on their feet, glancing at each other. Their whispering voices rose awkwardly. “No means no?”

“Yes!” exclaimed Gwen. “_No means no_! So, what do you do if someone turns down your marriage proposal?”

The gnomes exchanged more looks. “We kidnap them?”

Gwen took her hair in her fists, and yanked it. “_No_!”

Jeff spoke up, poking his fingers together. “We… _Don’t_ kidnap them?”

“Jeff, you are the only gnome with any sense,” said Gwen. “You’re right. This gnomestead will not kidnap anyone without my express permission. Now, what do you say to Mabel?”

“Shmebulock,” said Shmebulock.

Gwen took a long moment to inhale, then sigh. “I’m going to assume that you were apologising,” she said. “Well done. We say _‘sorry’_ to Mabel.”

Vague approximations of the word _“Sorry,”_ were made by the crowd of gnomes, but Mabel couldn’t find the energy in herself to accept the apologies.

“Can I go home now, Gwen?” she asked, instead. "I'm _seriously_ sleepy, and, honestly, your husbands still terrify me."

Gwen strode through the crowd of gnomes to ruffle Mabel’s hair. “Sure thing, love! I’ll see you later, though, right?”

Mabel took the hand in her hair and held it in both of her own. With words weighted with sincerity, she spoke:

“You are _so_ invited to my birthday party.”

* * *

“What did you do today?” Dipper asked later, when they were both tucked up in bed.

Mabel groaned and rolled over. It had been an incredibly long day, spanning quite a few decades. She waved a noncommittal hand above her head and said the first thing that she remembered.

“Raised the dead."

Dipper sat bolt upright.


End file.
